The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First

Tenacious D. Flight of the Conchords. The Lonely Island. We have plenty of examples of goofy guys getting together and making mirthy music. Where do the Wolves of Glendale fit in? Eric Jackowitz and Ethan Edenburg both came out of South Florida rock bands, and after performing for the Todd Glass podcast, formed a comedy band called The Cooties who were New Faces at Montreal's Just For Laughs in 20...

Subhah Agarwal is a bicoastal writer and stand-up comedian who grew up outside of Chicago, where she first started hitting open mics while still in high school. Subhah has written for Comedy Knockout on TruTV, The Jim Jefferies Show on Comedy Central, and Arsenio Hall's live 2022 talk show for Netflix. She made her late-night TV debut telling jokes on NBC's A Little Late with Lilly Singh , and act...

Yvonne Orji first came to our attention as Molly, Issa's best friend on Issa Rae's HBO series, Insecure . The Nigerian-born actress and comedian hasn't let the end of Insecure keep her down, though. Since the series wrapped at the end of 2021, Orji has put out her first book, "Bamboozled by Jesus," hosted the Yearly Departed comedy special for Amazon Prime Video, hosted the International Emmy Awar...

Forty years after his first screen credit as Modell in the Barry Levinson film, Diner , Paul Reiser is enjoying a career renaissance, co-starring in the biggest series on both Netflix and Amazon in Stranger Things and The Boys . Now in his 60s, Reiser has returned to his first love, stand-up comedy, embarking on a nationwide tour in the fall of 2022. Reiser sat down with me to talk about stand-up...

Liz Miele started doing stand-up at 16, got profiled by The New Yorker at 18, and earned her first TV credit on Comedy Central by 22. Miele has produced and starred in multiple web series, and written a book, " Why Cats Are Assholes " which came out in 2021. She has released four comedy albums, and the video versions of two of them have racked up millions of views apiece on YouTube. In September 2...

Jinkx Monsoon is a comedian and singer best known for becoming the first performer to win two seasons of RuPaul's Drag Race , first in season 5 in 2013, followed by the all-winner all-star edition in 2022, where she was crowned "Queen of All Queens." She began touring annually over the holidays in 2018 with fellow Drag Race star BenDeLaCreme, and you can watch The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Special on H...

Michelle Ortiz was born in Los Angeles but studied all over the world, including the Moscow Art Theatre School, and classical opera in Germany. A participant in both the ABC and CBS diversity showcases, Ortiz broke through first as a cast member on the reboot of MADtv for The CW — where she impersonated the likes of Kim Kardashian, Melania Trump, Sofia Vergara, Jennifer Lopez, and Dora the Explore...

Alice Fraser first studied law in Sydney, Australia, but found comedy and the Footlights while getting her Master's degree in rhetoric at Cambridge, and honed her stand-up skills in New York City's open mics and comedy clubs before returning to Australia as a comedian. You've likely heard Fraser's voice before if you're a fan of The Bugle . She also hosts a weekly spin-off podcast, The Gargle — an...

The creator and star of HBO's "A Black Lady Sketch Show," Robin Thede and her crew already have enjoyed 13 Emmy nominations and one Emmy win heading into the 2022 awards ceremony, as well as 2020 honors from the TV Critics Association for outstanding sketch/variety series. Thede grew up in Iowa, studied broadcast media at Northwestern and made a brief stop at The Second City before going Hollywood...

Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher grew up near each other in Atlanta but only became a sketch comedy duo while attending NYU together. As BriTANicK, they've made viral videos for YouTube, Cracked, CollegeHumor and Funny or Die, catapulting them onto Variety's 10 Comics to Watch list in 2013. They've acted together How I Met Your Mother , Much Ado About Nothing , and the indie comedy film Balls Out;...

Originally from New Jersey, Anthony DeVito is a NYC-based comedian who has performed on The   Late Show with Stephen Colbert , released a half-hour special on Comedy Central, and a full special, "Brain Noise," in May 2022 on YouTube. DeVito was a writer and sidekick of Sam Morril on MSG's People Talking Sports and Other Stuff.  He followed that up by writing for Netflix's The Break with Michelle W...

Emily Wilson is a comedian and actress based in New York City who performs stand-up, characters and funny songs. Wilson hosts a weekly comedy showcase in the East Village called Tuesdays at the Red Room. But you may have seen her before and not realized it —   Wilson competed on The X Factor in 2011, when she was only 15 — and that experience is mined for her one-woman show "FIXED," which she is t...

Lance Reddick stars as Renzo, an egotistical human warrior who has liberated the planet Farzar from evil aliens — it's all part of the new Netflix sci-fi animated comedy series, Farzar , created by Roger Black and Waco O'Guin, whose previous animated projects include Brickleberry and Paradise PD. Black and O'Guin have been making outrageous comedy since meeting in college at the University of Geor...

Kylie Brakeman is an actress and comedian who broke through during the pandemic, as millions have found themselves laughing and sharing her videos where she faces the camera as one of many high-energy characters just trying to make sense of the world we live in now. From the strength of her videos on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, Brakeman has landed writing jobs on Peacock's The Kids Tonight Show...

The daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Jackie Fabulous grew up in The Bronx but went to law school in Southern California before deciding in her mid-30s to pursue a career in stand-up comedy. After some initial TV credits on Arsenio and Last Comic Standing , her comedy path began to become truly fabulous after she competed on America's Got Talent in 2019. She moved back to The Bronx just before the...

Jordy Fox Ellner is the head of film, TV and podcast development at All Things Comedy, the production company launched by comedians Bill Burr and Al Madrigal. Ellner started as a comedian himself in the late 1990s in Los Angeles, where Mitzi Shore made him a doorman and eventually a paid regular at The Comedy Store. His career transitioned in 2006 when he took over the fledgling comedy division at...

Dan Perlman started out as an intern on SiriusXM's "Ron and Fez Show" and continued working with and for Ron Bennington while he was hitting the stand-up open mic scene in New York City. After winning the Just for Laughs-New York TV Festival's "Set to Screen" Comedy Pitch Competition in 2015, Perlman earned himself a pilot presentation from FOX for his animated project, That's My Bus . But it was...

Iain Stirling's Scottish accent might be known around the world for narrating the exploits of the hit British reality TV series, Love Island . But in Stirling's first Amazon Original stand-up special, Failing Upwards , the comedian finds himself falling short of everyone else's expectations when it comes to his physical health and his love life. Stirling sat down with me over Zoom to discuss how g...

You may have heard Helen Hong as a regular panelist on the hit NPR quiz show, "Wait Wait…Don't Tell Me." Hong also has appeared on the big screen in Inside Llewyn Davis , and in recurring roles on TV in sitcoms and comedy shows including HBO's Silicon Valley , The Unicorn on CBS, and The Netflix Afterparty . And as a stand-up comedian, Hong has grown up from her start as a "Little Ethnic Girl," re...

Wyatt Cenac and Donwill have enjoyed a long friendship and working relationship, with the DJ providing beats and sidekick commentary for Cenac when he had a long-running Monday night stand-up showcase in Brooklyn called Night Train, which begat a Seeso series of the same name. They also worked together on HBO's Problem Areas with Wyatt Cenac . And since 2011, the duo has presided over a live movie...

Bruce McCulloch is a Canadian actor, writer, and director best known as one of the five  Kids in the Hall  — who came back in a big way in 2022 — their sixth season of sketch comedy premiered May 13 on Amazon Prime Video, with a documentary about them,  Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks,  out the following week. As a solo act, McCulloch has written a book ("Let's Start A Riot"), released two albums, ...

Addie Weyrich got an early jump on her comedy career, dropping out of NYU when the teenager's work with the likes of the Upright Citizens Brigade, Improv Everywhere and Buzzfeed were taking off. She scored roles on episodes of Crashing on HBO, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon, and Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell on Adult Swim, and she began appearing in national TV commercials. That jumpstart...

Karen Chee is a writer and performer for Late Night with Seth Meyers . She has previously written for the Golden Globes and the Amazon Prime Video special, Yearly Departed , has developed TV pilots for Netflix and Comedy Central, and has published humor pieces in The New Yorker and McSweeney's . All before the age of 27. No wonder she made Variety's "Power of Young Hollywood" list as well as Forbe...

Alison Leiby is a writer and comedian who started her own showcase at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City called It's A Long Story. Leiby's story is still being told. In TV, it has included late-night writing on staff for Comedy Central's The President Show , and The Opposition with Jordan Klepper , as well as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel . She's written jokes for Triumph the Insult...

Irene Tu is a Los Angeles-based stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. After moving to Berkeley from Chicago, she quickly established herself in the Bay Area comedy scene. The San Francisco Chronicle singled her out as an "artist on the brink of fame," while other outlets have named her to the lists of "Bay Area's 11 Best Stand Up Comedians," "Women to Watch" and "Comedians You Should and Will Know...